Vertical Format

This old anchor is featured near the entrance to my favorite outdoor restaurant on Southport Island.  Once again, I listened to my heart and decided to paint its portrait.  

In such a simple outdoor still life, it would have been easy to place the anchor squarely in the middle of the page.  It would have also been easy to make the shaft of the anchor perfectly vertical.  But I considered the compositional elements of direction and balance to place the anchor slightly off center.  The oblique lines of the shaft and the chain fall roughly on the thirds.  The shadows also help balance the weight of the chain on the left hand side of the composition.

Vertical compositions are, percentage-wise, much less prevalent.  Landscapes tend to be horizontal while portraits tend to be vertical.  So even though this is an object in the landscape, I considered it a portrait.  Too much empty space would have had to be dealt with if I had painted this in a horizontal format.  I would have had to add more stuff on either side of the anchor.  

Choose your subject matter with your heart. Design your composition with your head.